The whole art and mystery of coach-robbing began to be studied at a very early date. In the _London Gazette_ during 1684 we find the following extremely explicit advertisement:-- “A GENTLEMAN (passing with others in the Northampton Stage Coach on Wednesday the 14th instant, by Harding Common about two miles from Market-street) was set upon by four Theeves, plain in habit but well-horsed, and there (amongst other things) robbed of a Watch; the description of it thus, The Maker’s Name was engraven on the Back plate in French, Gulimus Petit à Londres; it was of a large round Figure, flat, Gold Enamelled without, with variety of Flowers of different colours, and within a Landskip, and by a fall the Enamel was a little cracked; It had also a black Seale-Skin plain Case lined with Green Velvet. If any will produce it, and give notice to Mr. Samuel Gibs, Sadler near the George Inn Northampton, or to Mr. Cross in Wood Street, London, he shall have a Guinea reward.” It is to be feared that the gentleman who thus mourned his watch never regained it. From this time forward, until well into the nineteenth century, highwaymen and the highway-robbery of postboys, stage-coaches, post-chaises, and all sorts and conditions of wayfarers became commonplaces of travel. Dick Turpin’s name has acquired an undue prominence, on account of Harrison Ainsworth elevating him upon a pedestal, as the hero of a romance, but his was really neither a prominent nor an heroic figure. Innumerable other practitioners surpassed him. Claude Du Vall, who robbed and danced on Hounslow Heath; Abershaw, the terror of the Surrey Commons; Captain Hind, soldier and gentleman, warring with authority; Boulter, whose depredations were conducted all over the kingdom; the “Golden Farmer” on the Exeter Road, outside Bagshot: all these and very many more were infinitely superior to Turpin, and, as they phrased it, “spoke to” the coaches with great success during their brief but crowded career. Nowadays, we hear much of overcrowded professions; but those of the Army, the Church, and the Law are by no means so crowded as were the ranks of the liberal profession of highway robbery in the brave nights of crape mask and horse-pistols at the cross-roads on the blasted heaths which then encompassed the Metropolis; lonesome places of dreadful possibilities, which could not have been more conveniently placed for the purpose of these night-hawks had they been expressly designed for them.